I did my apprenticeship at the start of the 80’s 1st year of which covered a broad range of skills including arc welding, I was fairly decent at it.
Fast forward 20 years I bought a welder, got a lump of scrap steel and away I went, my welding was rubbish, spoke to welder to ask what I was doing wrong, and he echoed what was being said on thread. Steel ain’t what it used to be, gone are the days of top quality British Steel, mostly from China now with all sorts of strange lumps in it. He gave me a couple bits of decent steel and my welding was much better.